


Second Spring

by Palebluedot



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domesticity, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Post-Canon, local fluff peddler not yet done writing these two living happily ever after in a cottage, post-reunion, sappy old men keeping the romance alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 12:16:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13501508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot
Summary: When he raises a gentle hand to pet Thomas's hair, Thomas notices he's holding the other behind his back. “What have you got there?”James does pull back then, making a space between them to accommodate the bunch of buttercups he produces with a flourish of his wrist.





	Second Spring

Spring pours into their cottage when James comes home. His wet boots leave small, muddy puddles on the golden patch of sun painting the doorstep before they're toed off and left to dry on the mat, and the cool, rain-perfumed air from the open door mingles sweetly with what blows in from the windows. Thomas would still smile and look up from his desk if his husband brought home a blizzard, but he can't deny that he rather prefers this way around.

“Hello, dear,” he says, and tilts his face into James's greeting, the murmured _hello_ and cheek kiss both. The latter lasts a good deal longer than normal, and when James does break off he doesn't go far, turning his attention to nuzzling Thomas's temple. That earns him a low, delighted laugh from Thomas. James never fails to charm while drunk on fresh air. When he raises a gentle hand to pet Thomas's hair, Thomas notices he's holding the other behind his back. “What have you got there?”

James does pull back then, making a space between them to accommodate the bunch of buttercups he produces with a flourish of his wrist. “For the fairest,” he says, pressing their gathered stems into Thomas's palm.

Thomas has no control over the smile that takes him then. Under James's pleased, proud eye, he traces his thumb over the edge of a bright, lustrous petal and marvels at how such a little thing can contain such beauty, how the simple act of its gifting can summon from within him such an upwelling of love. “Oh, James,” he says, and finds his voice has thickened. “You shouldn't have.”

“And why shouldn't I dote on my beloved?” James asks, tracing his thumb over Thomas's knuckles. His brow suddenly creases. “These won't make you sneeze, will they?”

“No,” Thomas laughs, holding the bouquet to his nose for a demonstrative sniff. “I only meant....” He looks to James's face, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, and decides that thoughts of how very long he once spent in a place without a speck of color, much less affection of any sort, have no place in this moment, and banishes them with a smile. “I only meant that the last time a gift of gold was presented to _the fairest_ , there were a few unfavorable consequences. The romance is somewhat overshadowed,” he declares, reaching up and curling the fingers of his free hand into the hair at James's nape, “if the sacking of Troy looms imminent.”

“The trouble began, you'll recall, with uncertainty over who had the best claim to the title,” James replies sagely. “There can be no question here. What's more, I hardly need Aphrodite to promise me a lover of unparalleled beauty, do I?”

It's ridiculous, every syllable. “You old flirt,” Thomas says warmly, tugging James down so that he can kiss him for it. James sinks into it happily, framing Thomas's face with both of his rough hands, and Thomas's ears fall deaf to all but the soft, wet sounds of lips on adoring lips, and the faint twittering of birds beyond the window.

The shower grows into a downpour. Thomas grasps at James one-handedly, the other arm wound around his back with the buttercups still clutched in his fist, James presses forwards until Thomas can sit back no further in his chair, and when Thomas nips at James's bottom lip, he's rewarded with a muffled moan.

“You may want to set those down,” James whispers in a rush against his lips. Thomas does so with care, letting the blossoms hang just over the edge of his desk so that they do not bend. Once it's done, Thomas barely has the chance to tangle his hand in James's hair before he's lifted bodily from his seat. Startled laughter whooping from his throat, Thomas watches the world tilt and topple as James staggers to the sofa and lays him heavily down. James follows him before his initial bounce dampens, his weight crushing sweetly, his kisses flowing freely from Thomas's mouth to his jaw to his fluttering pulse.

Thomas twines both arms around James's waist and holds fast. He feels like he imagines the earth must feel this time of year, thrumming and bursting with life. As he arcs his neck, he catches a glimpse of the yellow flowers left on the desk and resolves to put them in water — but later, later, in good time. Now, he rolls James beneath him and devotes his thoughts to nothing but the cause of the March hare's lunacy, those hands that hold every part of him as though he were a gifted flower himself.

~+~+~+~

Over breakfast some days later, Thomas sighs. He knows better than to touch a buttercup while eating lest he risk some trace of poison, and that he's being awfully sentimental, but he wants to trail a mournful finger over the edge of a wilted blossom anyway.

“I suppose these are rather past their prime,” he says in answer to James's questioning look.

James swallows his mouthful of eggs, wipes his mouth. “Suppose they are,” he agrees. “Do you want me to take them out?”

“You're sweet, but no, we'd both better be off soon, no sense in worrying about it now. I'll take care of it when I return home.” Thomas rises from his seat, puts his dishes in the basin, and walks back to James. “Love you,” he says before a kiss and in lieu of a goodbye.

The day passes. By the time Thomas lays his boots on the mat next to James's, the light is slanted and golden. Glancing around the cottage, he finds it empty, but the vegetables and knives laid out on the table tell him that James can't have gone far. His eye catches on the foot of the vase, and he remembers that it must be emptied, and approaches.

But when he reaches for the flowers, he finds them transformed, their stems no longer drooping, their petals no longer shriveled — and there are rather more of them than there were that morning, joined as they are by several stalks of bluebells.

The road they take to town has stretches flush with wildflowers. The thought of his James stopping on his way to bend and pick a chosen handful to take home, not once but twice, fills Thomas's mind so that he can think of nothing else. Thomas feels like a schoolboy and a man who's been in love for a lifetime all at once.

With a parting brush to the side of a blue, trumpet-like flower and the nearby huddle of pink buds, Thomas peels off his socks and pads back outside. The sun warms the same skin that the air chills, the muddy ground gives pleasantly beneath his feet. After a brief journey to the back of the house, he spots James returning from the well, a filled pail in each hand. Thomas waves in greeting and meets him halfway. He takes a pail from James's hand, and replaces it with a hand of his own. Together, they walk towards the cottage.

“And what are you smiling about?” James asks with the air of one hoping for a particular answer.

Thomas ducks his head and his smile grows. There are a thousand ways he could answer that question, all of them true. He settles on a question of his own. "You do know you've already won me, don't you?"

"What's that?"

"The flowers, darling.” Thomas turns his head in time to see the shine brighten in James's eye. “You needn't work quite so hard to court a man who's already yours. I've been thoroughly, thoroughly wooed for a long count of years now."

“Oh, that,” James hums in a faint approximation of innocence. “I did notice they'd perked up somewhat. I assumed they'd found a second life in your touch.”

“You're a liar and a scoundrel,” Thomas informs him fondly, “and I do so adore you.”

James smirks, clearly well-satisfied with that. Then the end of their short walk is upon them, and Thomas sets down his pail so that he might open the door without letting go James's hand, then decides he can do one better, and takes James's from him too and puts it beside his own. With all their hands open and no one else around, Thomas is free to drape his arms over James's shoulders and bend to lightly rest their foreheads together, and James is free to hold him about the waist.

“Thank you,” Thomas says into the small space between them, “you dear man.”

“ _Had_ I done it, I'd believe my motivations to be selfish ones,” says James, the teasing edge to his voice softening. "That smile you showed me the last time is a sight worth my time to see repeated, for as long as the season will allow.”

Today alone, Thomas thinks, the season has allowed a great deal. Spring is the season for lovers, after all, and all the more so for those who have seen many winters between them, so Thomas gives thanks for its sweet breezes and the lingering chill so easily dispelled by the warmth of a kiss on their doorstep beneath a clear blue sky.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Did y'all know that buttercups are super poisonous if ingested? Because I sure didn't before starting Georgia wildflower research. 
> 
> I credit my recent relentless fixation on James giving Thomas flowers to these two things in equal measure: 
> 
> 1) the mundane-for-a-Californian-but-absolutely-fucking-mind-blowing-for-a-Minnesota-transplant experience of finding real live daffodils growing in January
> 
> 2) [AstronautSquid's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/AstronautSquid) absolute masterpiece, [Stimulus](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13004592). If you haven't read it yet, do! 
> 
> Comments are love! <3


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